I finished up the last of the bracing and boxing for the front suspension today, and put the car on the ground!

I have a set of Maxspeed lowering springs for it. I picked up the springs for free from my friend who sold them by the hundreds, but have no data on the springs.

 

When I dropped it to the ground for the first time, it took a deeper seat than I was expecting with the stiff springs. That in fact was good news. I thought that the springs would be too stiff, and I would have a twitchy car. I do have a set of secondary springs I can put up front to give me more travel, a bit more compliance, and the ride height I want. The rear doesn't weigh enough to move the springs more than 7mm (the front dropped 37mm). That will change when the radiator,battery and computer go in, as well as the seats and other brick-a-brack. I still don't expect the rear end to drop much more than an inch when fully loaded.

 

The double A-arms are crazy! the coil-overs go through the upper swing arm and tie to the lower control arm next to the propshaft, just back from the hub, and give the car an off-road truck suspension look. I triangulated the bracing enough that it should handle everything I plan on tossing at it, and that adds to the baja 500 look as well.

 

I want to get pics up so bad, that I will go ahead and post some webcam pics tomorrow. I'll take new ones during the day to try for better light.

 

'Till tomorrow

Troy

PICTURES!!

 

Sounds friggin sweet, but we NEED pictures, I for one definatly want to see how this beast looks.

are you putting the radiator in the back? I was thinking about doing this with my RX and was worried about how well it would work, so please let me know how well it works

I put the radiator in the back when it was still a 3 cylinder. I did it because I didn't think the turb would fit well (as it turned out it didn't matter). I routed the whole thing with heater hose from a trucking parts house, and a bunch pipe bits to get around and through walls and such.

It wasn't pretty, but it worked pretty well. The only problem I had was the hoses getting vapor locked and colapsing. I just used the engine water pump to move the whole system. The best thing I did was put in a high point well above the radiator and the engine. At the high point I put in a tap to put water in and bleed air out of the system. When it was air free, it cooled extremely well! The only time it got warm was while the car sat in line at the RallyCrosses. Just reving it up for a couple of minutes brought the temp right down. During a run it got downright cool. I had removed the thermostat to maintain a good moving flow, and it may have been too much. But it worked.